/*
 * Copyright 2011 J. Auer, J. Andert, F.-J. Jendrusch, U. Celebi
 *
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 */
package de.fuberlin.replication.communication;

import java.io.IOException;

/**
 * Communication interface for replication.
 */
public interface Communication {
	/**
	 * Read an object from the communication channel.
	 * 
	 * @return the read object.
	 * @throws IOException if an error occurs while reading from the source stream.
	 * @throws ClassNotFoundException if the class of one of the objects in the object graph cannot be found.
	 */
	Object read() throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException;

	/**
	 * Write an object to the communication channel.
	 * 
	 * @param o the object to be written.
	 * @throws IOException if an error occurs while writing to the target stream.
	 */
	void write(Object o) throws IOException;
}